Danny Nalliah
| Danny Nalliah | |
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| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Daniel Nalliah |
| Born | 1964 (age 52–53) Columbo, Sri Lanka |
| Denomination | Christian: independent Pentecostal, previously Australian Christian Churches |
| Occupation | Pastor, political leader Rise Up Australia Party |
Daniel "Danny" Nalliah (born 1964) is a Sri Lankan Australian evangelical Christian pastor and young earth creationist. He is the leader of the Rise Up Australia political party and the president of Catch the Fire Ministries. Nalliah successfully defended against a lawsuit brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria under Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. In this landmark case, Nalliah, along with his colleague Daniel Scot, was found not to have incited hatred under Victoria's then-new religious vilification laws. He used to be associated with the Australian Christian Churches.
According to his biography published by the Catch the Fire Ministries, Daniel Nalliah was born in Sri Lanka to minority Sri Lankan Tamil parents who spoke English as their first language. However, he was schooled at the Nugegoda Tamil Mahavidyalaya in Colombo, where all teaching was in done in Tamil. He was introduced to the "ways of God" by an Australian missionary. In his youth, he played at a number of night clubs in Colombo as a drummer before turning to religion. He also worked as an underground missionary in Saudi Arabia before migrating to Australia in 1997.
After moving to Australia and founding Catch the Fire Ministries, Nalliah travelled extensively, preaching to congregations in a number of countries. He asserts that he witnessed the healing of blind, deaf and crippled people at his prayer sessions and also claims that a dead girl was resurrected after he prayed for her.
On 9 March 2002, Daniel Scot spoke at a seminar regarding Islam, sponsored by Catch the Fire Ministries. The seminar was attended by three Australian Muslims; two of them were asked to attend by May Helou, an executive member of the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) and an employee of the Equal Opportunity Commission, Victoria. The third person was asked to attend by ICV members while he was at the ICV office. The three Muslims, along with the Islamic Council of Victoria, later launched action under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, claiming that the intent of the speech had been to vilify Muslims rather than to discuss Islam itself. After being considered by the Equal Opportunity Commission, the case was heard by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), becoming the first real test case under the act.
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